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Six Reasons Ministries of Finance Should Invest in Health Workers

Last week’s high-level talks about human resources for health in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, resulted in the Addis Ababa Call to Action on financing the health workforce, signed by the nine ministries of health that participated.
 
The call to action is a powerful tool that ministries of health, national health professional associations, and other health systems and health workforce champions can now use to advocate to their ministries of finance to invest more in health workers as the most direct way to meet their countries’ health goals. 
 
Yet the fact that none of the ministries of finance that participated in the Addis health financing meetings earlier in the week participated in the later health workforce meeting highlights the challenge we face in simply getting the attention of ministries of finance, much less persuading them to act. 

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Why We Need Data on Frontline Health Workers

Dr. Kate TulenkoThe lack of data on frontline health workers, particularly community health workers, constrains training, service delivery, and decision-making in global health. To understand better why this data is critical, and what can be done to improve it, mPowering Frontline Health workers and the One Million Health Workers Campaign are conducting a series of interviews to hear from the experts.

This week, we interviewed Dr. Kate Tulenko, Vice President, Health Systems Innovation for IntraHealth International and Director of CapacityPlus, USAID’s flagship health workforce project. Dr. Tulenko previously coordinated the World Bank’s Africa Health Workforce Program and has served on expert panels for the World Health Organization, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Hospital Association, amongst others. Her latest book, Insourced, identifies the links between the US and global health worker shortage and offers affordable solutions. Follow her on twitter at @ktulenko. Read more »

Data for Decision-Making Series: Diana Frymus

Diana FrymusWe are joining the One Million Health Workers Campaign in a series of interviews, to hear from the experts why data on community health workers is so critical, and what needs to be done.

This week, we spoke with Diana Frymus, Health Systems Strengthening Advisor in the Office of HIV/AIDS at USAID in Washington, DC. She focuses on strengthening health systems to achieve HIV goals and sustain national HIV programs. Her focal areas of emphasis are on human resources for health, including CHWs, and quality improvement. She is the USAID co-chair of the PEPFAR HRH Technical Working Group and the Health Systems Global Technical Working Group on Supporting and Strengthening the Role of Community Health Workers in Health System Development. Read more »

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